


Seabird

by theshopislocal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AKA, DeanCasWedding, Hawaii, Honeymoon, M/M, Teeny bit of angst, Valentine’s Destiel Wedding of 2021 AD, written for the
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29989059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshopislocal/pseuds/theshopislocal
Summary: Dean had spent his first twelve or so hours on the island coaxing his lungs to take in the briny air, sweating through the pits of his knockoff Tommy Bahama shirt, and subtly trying to smooth his poofy hair. Eventually, he’d given up and just peered out the window, eyes roving over the billowing fog in the valleys between the mountains.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	Seabird

Humid and warm, the air in Kihei hangs thick.

Dean had spent his first twelve or so hours on the island coaxing his lungs to take in the briny air, sweating through the pits of his knockoff Tommy Bahama shirt, and subtly trying to smooth his poofy hair. Eventually, he’d given up and just peered out the window, eyes roving over the billowing fog in the valleys between the mountains.

Unlike nearly every other trip Dean’s been on, this one was planned to the nines. The rental car (a freaking _Prius_ that Dean keeps forgetting is even on, it runs so damn quiet), the Hawaiian print vacation wardrobe (a wedding gift from _Bobby_ , of all people), the private villa (courtesy of Charlie, though Dean still isn’t sure if she digitally finagled a lease or if she somehow owns the place), and a fifteen page color-coded itinerary - written, printed, and _laminated_ by Sam.

Dean peels one eye open and casts it over the sprawling master suite. They’d arrived two days ago, but the luggage sits by the armoire still packed, the itinerary unopened on the low coffee table.

Dean smirks down at the sheets, sweat-damp and tangled near his feet, then swings his legs over the side of the bed. He hoists himself upright - ankles cracking, knees creaking - and his spine gives a resounding pop. He’s sore in some unusual places, and there are clusters of light bruises low on his thighs. He huffs an off-color laugh under his breath.

Movement in his peripheral vision has Dean looking over his shoulder toward the lanai.

The view through the open French doors is something else. A vast endless ocean, translucent blue and rippling, flanked by curving palm trees and golden-white sand. The clouds hang low, nearly crashing into the water.

And right in the center, barely twenty feet from where Dean stands, is a wide teak bench - with a dark, tousled head peaking over it.

Dean’s face cracks in a crooked smile.

He staggers toward the veranda, pausing to step into a pair of boxers that he’s pretty sure are his, and lumbers barefoot onto the stone tile under the awning.

He steps around the bench and lowers himself gingerly onto the seat. A familiar ache climbs from the backs of his thighs to the small of his back, and he smiles at the low burn.

He glances over at Cas. He’s wearing a white undershirt (Dean’s) and blue plaid boxers, hirsute legs crossed at the ankles. His skin is dewy in the damp air, arms goosebumped (though it’s 70-something degrees), and a dusting of stubble crawls over his sharp jawline. His hair is a riot, pillow-flattened at the back and wild everywhere else.

He looks—

Dean chews his lip and follows Cas’ gaze out over the water. There’s a seabird flying lazy figure eights a ways out.

Dean clears his throat and swallows. “So.”

“So,” Cas grumbles back.

One corner of Dean’s mouth ticks up, and he bumps his shoulder briefly against Cas’. “Man,” he huffs out and tips his head toward the bedroom. “We coulda been doin’ that for...” he trails off and shakes his head, pressing his back against the bench. There’s a sore spot just under his shoulder blade, and he wonders if there’s a bruise there, too.

Cas hums and tilts his head. “Ten years, give or take.”

Dean’s brow drops low, head turning sharply toward Cas. “Ten years,” he repeats, bemused.

Cas hums again, head craning back to follow the seagull’s steep climb upward. “Closer to twelve, maybe.”

Dean blinks several times in succession.

Twelve years.

_Twelve years?_

No. No, that’s not right. Dean couldn’t have had Cas twelve years ago. Twelve years ago, Dean was young and stupid, blind to everything but the never-ending search for revenge, mired in a pit of tar-black self-loathing, salty and embittered, lonesome and _angry_ —

Dean swallows around a sudden lump in his throat. “We barely knew each other,” he grunts out.

Cas sighs a soft laugh and turns toward Dean. He’s got that look he gets sometimes - all soft-lipped forbearance and bag-eyed empathy. And there’s something else, too. Something in the pink rims of his eyelids, the straight line of his brow - something bittersweet and aching like—

Cas turns back toward the sea, head tilting just so. “Did you know,” he murmurs, “the first garrison sent to collect you from the Pit—” he shakes his head, “—failed.”

Dean frowns, eying Cas’ stark profile against the ice-blue sky. “Oh?”

Cas hums and gives a slow nod, eyes seeking out the little bird again, gone back now to its idle circling. “They couldn’t find you,” he intones. “Hell is...” he pauses, and his shoulders twitch in a little shrug, “... expansive.”

Dean nods. He’d spent forty years there, after all - not counting the various forays afterwards. Every time he’d returned, there’d been a moment of paralyzing fear - a desperate clench somewhere in his chest, as he wondered if he’d make it out this time.

Dean shakes his head, shoulders going stiff. “So how’d you find me?” he grumbles.

Cas is silent for a beat, and Dean peers up at him. His face has gone soft, mouth curving around a tiny smile. “I saw you the moment I arrived,” he murmurs.

Dean stares at him, noting the faraway tone and the loose shoulders, the new laugh-line etching itself at the corner of Cas’ mouth.

He replays the words in his head and gives a dry snort. “What was I, right next to your dropsite?”

Cas’ lips pull back, smile going wide and gummy. “No,” he demurs. “No, you were...” he squints, considering, “... twenty, maybe thirty thousand miles away.”

Dean feels his jaw go slack, eyebrows climbing toward his forehead. He remembers Sammy’s dorky astronomy phase when they were kids, how he’d inundated Dean with silly Snapple-cap facts - like the precise length of an astronomical unit, or the eight thousand mile diameter of the earth.

_Twenty, maybe thirty thousand miles away._

Dean’s eyelids flutter, head shaking in a recursive twitch. His mouth has gone dry, tongue sticking to the backs of his teeth as he grunts out, “Thirty- _thousand miles_.”

Cas tips his head side to side. “Thereabouts, yes.”

Dean stares at him, eyes wide and unblinking. His jaw works soundlessly for a moment before he scrubs a weathered hand over his face, breathing a startled laugh. “ _How?_ ”

Cas gives a bemused hum and tilts his head toward Dean, though his eyes still chase the little seagull.

Dean shakes his head. “How could you see me?”

Cas’ eyes cut over to Dean’s, slitted against the morning sun. They flick over Dean’s face like Cas is categorizing him, committing him to memory, and Dean feels his brow sink in a frown.

A tiny smile pulls at the corner of Cas’ mouth. His eyes go soft in that way they do when he’s about to say something too frank, too forthright, too—

“You were a beacon.”

Dean’s eyes fall shut, and a sigh gusts out of him, emptying his lungs.

Stupid, really; it’s not like he doesn’t know how Cas feels. He’d known it when Cas had first said the words - bloodied and weeping, walking the plank. He’d known it when Cas had returned from the Void - pale and thin, with fragile bones and sunken eyes. He’d known it five days ago, when Cas had murmured _I do_ , and Dean, wet-eyed, had grunted it back.

And yet.

“I was confused,” Cas says, cutting through Dean’s wayward thoughts. “I didn’t understand why my brethren couldn’t see you.” He breathes out a soft sigh, eyes distant and a little awestruck. “You shone like a star.”

Dean’s jaw goes taut, molars grinding together. He peers down at his feet and digs his toe into a hairline crack in the stone tile. He isn’t a star. Most days, he’s barely even sure he’s a _man_ , so much as a hapless slew of endless mistakes, hands gnarled and spine bowing under the weight.

He doesn’t argue, though - _can’t_ argue; it’s one of the vows Cas had pulled from him as they’d stood together in the graffitied barn where they’d met: _Promise me_ , Cas had whispered, _promise me you’ll let me_.

There’s a soft pressure at Dean’s side - Cas nudging him with his shoulder - and Dean looks up.

Cas’ eyes shine a bright Carolina blue, his chapped lips curved in a bittersweet smile. “I found you,” he says, “the same way that...” he shakes his head, casting his eyes toward the ground, “... a sailor finds a lighthouse.”

Something swells in Dean’s chest, pressing against the inside of his rib cage, and there’s a sharp sting behind his eyes.

Cas glances back up at him, and his eyebrows arch toward the center of his forehead as he says, “You were all I could see.”

The tension across Dean’s shoulders breaks - sudden and startling - and he hunches forward, blowing out a sigh. His vision is hazy at the edges, wetness clumping his eyelashes together.

Twelve years.

_Twelve years._

Dean’s mouth moves before his brain does. “Even—” Dean bites his tongue, incisors digging into the tip, then shakes his head. He’s already come this far - _so_ far, actually, now that he’s thinking about it. “Even then?” he intones. “Even back then, you...?”

The question hangs, floating on the salted air, and a cumulus cloud crawls over the sun. The light bends and shifts.

Cas smiles down at his feet then peers out over the water. “Yes,” he says plainly. “Even then.”

Dean blows out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and follows Cas’ eyes to the sea. There’s something fluttering in Dean’s throat, pressing at the backs of his teeth, waiting to slip out. Dean holds the tiny words on his tongue, tasting them on every inhale.

The clouds part above, a shaft of yellow light cutting through the mist, and a gust of wind sends the little seabird soaring, up and up and up—

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Valentine’s Day fanon (read: canon) wedding of Dean and Cas that took place on various social media and ultimately ended up with some poor intern at Twitter having to write a blurb explaining #DeanCasWedding. Happy 2021, folks.


End file.
